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Tag: Police State

It is amazing the amount of “crimes” one broken taillight precipitated.

A recent court case in Massachusetts highlights the insanity of statute law, versus common law. That is, relying on laws made by politicians, rather than assessing a claim brought by a victim.

Time, money, and freedom are all poured down the drain in favor of arbitrary statutes.

It started with a guy being pulled over for having a taillight out.

He was arrested for not having a license to drive a car. Already, this is a violation of rights. Why should you be forced to pay for a license in order to travel down public roads?

Licensure does little in the way of public safety. It is a vehicle to collect more money and keep track of citizens.

So society says it is better to kidnap a man and throw him in a cage than to allow people the freedom to travel unmolested. He victimized no one but was victimized by the state.

Next, cops saw a gun muzzle poking out of the pocket in the back seat. Apparently, seeing a bit of a gun is probable cause to search. Are guns illegal? No. Ah but again, those pesky licenses! The government requires licenses to exercise rights. You have to pay in order to be free.

When they performed the search, which was based on the gun, which was discovered because no driver’s license, which was revealed because of the broken headlight, the police found he also had some drugs in the vehicle. Add another victimless crime to the rap sheet.

This guy would never have been in the crosshairs of law enforcers at all, except a statute says a car must have two working taillights. Nowhere in any of this did the suspect victimize anyone.

Should he be charged with another crime, based on whether or not the gun was loaded?

Was there probable cause to find out if the gun was loaded?

Did the defendant know the gun was loaded?

The Appeals Court decision acknowledged that “proving knowledge that a firearm was loaded will often be quite difficult,” and that the effect of the ruling will likely be that few people will be convicted under that section of the law.

But the judges concluded that because the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in an earlier case that prosecutors must prove someone knew they were in possession of ammunition, they must also prove someone knew if that ammunition happened to be inside of a gun.

Blah, blah blah, blah blah. Was there a victim? No? Let the guy go. That is how simple true rule of law is.

Unless a law protects a victim, it creates a victim. Laws are not the same thing as the rule of law. Under rule of law, mere possession of an item would not see you imprisoned.

Ninth Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Of Course, the government doesn’t abide by the rights enumerated in the Constitution, let alone implied rights.

Never heard of Palantir? Well, if you’re a J.R.R. Tolkien- Lord of the Rings fan, or a fan of the movie adaptations of the fantasy trilogy, you’ll know what a “palantir” is: it is for all intents and purposes a crystal-ball that functions as a kind of communications device, allowing its users, presumably, to also see future actions.

It is also the name of a predictive program developed by Peter Thiel, and rapidly being sold to law enforcement agencies around the country, according to this article shared by Mr. R.R.T, and it’s well worth reading and pondering carefully:

As the article avers, the program brings to mind Philip K. Dick’s “Department of Pre-Crime” which figured in the Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report:

Palantir, the CIA-backed startup, is Minority Report come true. It is all-powerful, yet no one knows it even exists. Palantir does not have an office, it has a “SCIF” on a back street in Palo Alto, California. SCIF stands for “sensitive compartmentalised information facility”. Palantir says its building “must be built to be resistant to attempts to access the information within. The network must be ‘airgapped’ from the public internet to prevent information leakage.”

Palantir’s defence systems include advanced biometrics and walls impenetrable to radio waves, phone signal or internet. Its data storage is blockchained: it cannot be accessed by merely sophisticated hacking, it requires digital pass codes held by dozens of independent parties, whose identities are themselves protected by blockchain.

…

Palantir watches everything you do and predicts what you will do next in order to stop it. As of 2013, its client list included the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Centre for Disease Control, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point and the IRS. Up to 50% of its business is with the public sector. In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture arm, was an early investor.

Palantir tracks everyone from potential terrorist suspects to corporate fraudsters (Bernie Madoff was imprisoned with the help of Palantir), child traffickers and what they refer to as “subversives”. But it is all done using prediction.

In Iraq, the Pentagon used Palantir software to track patterns in roadside bomb deployment and worked out garage-door openers were being used as remote detonators by predicting it.

Palantir allowed the marines to upload DNA samples from remote locations and tap into information gathered from years of collecting fingerprints and DNA evidence, the results returned almost immediately.

Of course, all of this calls to mind Dick’s “Department of Pre-Crime” and the dangers it presents, and the article itself mentions them:

However, when Cruise’s character begins to question the morality of what he is doing, his superiors detect a threat to the entire pre-crime programme. In order to get rid of him, Cruise is framed for a murder by altering the data of his thought history. In the final showdown with his boss, it is explained to Cruise that sometimes the numbers need to lie for the greater good of society.

Minority Report is set in 2054, but Palantir is putting pre-crime into operation now. The Los Angeles Police Department has used Palantir to predict who will commit a crime by swooping Minority Report-style on suspects. Palantir calls its work with the LAPD “improving situational awareness, and responding to crime in real time”.

Ok, so where’s the high octane speculation.

Well, today I don’t have one, but I do have a high octane prediction. Christ, according to the Gospels, once warned that all evil ultimately proceeds from the heart and mind of man. This is where it begins; the evil action begins not just in a thought or a temptation, but by the individual will holding it, so to speak, to the mind’s attention, and contemplating it. From God’s point of view, in other words, while the wilful attention to an evil action may not result in the action itself, nonetheless it is the same in God’s eyes as if it had. But from the practical development of moral theology, it was long recognized that, from the human point of view, the action itself was far worse than the mere act of wilful (and pleasurable) attention to it. (Apologies for compacting so much into so little space!) With this in mind, here is the high octane prediction: the use of such programs will be justified by those wanting to impose even more surveillance on society precisely by such “theological” and “moral” appeals; after all, if Christ warned about the heart and mind of the individual as the beginning of the process of an evil action, then the best way to nip it in the bud is to convict on the basis of that beginning, regardless of the end result. It will be “sold”, as it were, as a very “Christian” or “pious” or “religious” thing to do. Technology will thus be sold as a “solution” to the old problem of theodicy; technology, not grace, will perfect mankind. Everyone must conform in their thinking… it will be the new manifestation of the “social gospel”, a tempting apple in the eye of its advocates.

And that of course, completely misses the other part of the problem, but I’ll leave that for the reader to think about…

About Dr. Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

St. Louis, MO — St. Louis County Police have made headlines for highly questionable conduct on the job, as newly obtained public records reveal officers slacking en masse for cell phone time, sleeping on the clock, failing to perform required duties — including basic patrolling — and even taping over a security camera, in regular apparent attempts to conceal all of the aforementioned … if not more.

Documents, video, and other materials obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch catalogue a number of similar incidents in which police tasked with patrolling Metro stations and protecting commuters instead slacked off en masse behind closed doors — and, at least once, away from the camera’s watchful eye — even refusing to cooperate with transit officers.

“For the past several months,” the Post-Dispatch reports, “Metro officers have been unable to enforce laws, even for skipping fares, on the transit lines in the county, under legal threat from both county Police Chief Jon Belmar and St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch. Those county officials allege that the Metro officers — all of whom have Class A peace officer licenses through the state of Missouri — lack the proper legal authority to enforce the law.

“But the county police officers who are supposed to keep transit lines safe have been found hiding away in security offices rather than patrolling trains and platforms, according to the records kept by Metro. Maintaining those records has become more difficult in the past few months as the dispute between the county and Metro has intensified. Last year, the county officers patrolling Metro stopped using a radio channel that the Metro officers could also monitor. And for the past few months, county police have stopped sharing duty logs with Metro.”

As the Post-Dispatch points out, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger had only recently doubled the number of officers assigned to patrol Metro transit stations to quash an upswell in violence; but publicly available records show socializing and sleeping — rather than public safety — tops police officers’ priorities lists.

“I don’t see how any of this is serving the public interest or public safety,” Metro Department of Public Safety Chief Richard Zott told the news outlet after learning it had obtained the damning records.

While this appears superficially an issue correctable through disciplinary actions against the culpable officers, the broader topic of enforcing the law in St. Louis’ busy transit stations — a bureaucratic, jurisdictional conundrum held stagnant with red tape — has pitted St. Louis County Police against Metro officers, as officials parse out which police can legally police.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar and St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch contend the State of Missouri Class A peace officer licenses possessed by every Metro officer do not grant proper authority to enforce the law.

Indeed, Metro officers haven’t enforced any laws for months now — having been rendered impotent of that power for the duration of the bureaucratic fracas — which led to the doubling of county police in transit hubs. And now, as the Post-Dispatch evidences plainly, too many cops policing even less enthusiastically than before the issue became one in the first place.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed by political officials in response to shootings and other violent criminal activity rampant on the area’s light rail platforms, St. Louis County oversees all officers working the transit system — sort of.

“We have no idea what they do or where they go,” Zott, Metro public safety chief, of the county police who ostensibly should be supervising the Metro peace officers under his control.

To wit, and displaying pettiness usually reserved for grade schoolers, county and Metro officers not only aren’t patrolling, they’re no longer communicating — an obvious obstacle for carrying out duties, as well as for recordkeeping. Continues the Post-Dispatch,

“Maintaining those records has become more difficult in the past few months as the dispute between the county and Metro has intensified. Last year, the county officers patrolling Metro stopped using a radio channel that the Metro officers could also monitor. And for the past few months, county police have stopped sharing duty logs with Metro […]

“Metro operates 46 miles of light rail and 79 bus routes in its territory, which spans St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis, and St. Clair County in Illinois. The records obtained by the Post-Dispatch raised the most serious questions about St. Louis County police officers assigned to Metro.”

In the incident from July 4, logs indicate between five and 12 officers sporadically mulling about in the North Hanley security office between 5:52 p.m. and 9:48 p.m., followed by an officer taping the envelope over the camera at 11:11 p.m. — with the covering remaining in place slightly longer than one hour.

Similar activities — including the approximate hour around midnight where an officer taped paper over the security camera — repeated the following night, according to records reviewed by the Post-Dispatch.

That camera came to be installed at the Hanley station for the safety of all patrolling officers after a Metro customer accused an officer of accosting him on the platform and roughly pushing him into the security office in 2014, the Post-Dispatch notes, adding,

“Metro Public Safety Detective Daniel Donahue, who reviewed the footage requested by the Post-Dispatch, said that unlike the cameras on platforms, the camera in the North Hanley security office isn’t regularly monitored. But if complaints are made, officers pull the footage. It is in those circumstances that Metro officials discovered at least eight instances of the camera being covered.”

Zott first viewed officer misbehavior on video in December 2015, when an information technology employee of Metro reported to supervisors a county police officer napping on the job in the Hanley office — and further investigation revealed the pesky camera had been purposefully covered at the time.

Appalled, the safety chief captured a screenshot of a county cop covering the camera and sent the image to Melies with the caption, “Really? I’m at a loss.”

He never received a response.

But that isn’t even the worst of the embarrassingly errant conduct — particularly given this interdepartmental grudge match takes place as a backdrop to the spike in violent crime around the St. Louis Metro transit system.

In fact, the same evening last month two armed assailants robbed and beat a 14-year-old boy, one keen public safety officer noticed all county officers absent from the platform they should have been patrolling.

Upon cursory investigation, the Metro officer found his county counterparts — not patrolling the platform or responding to an incident — but lounging inside Hanley’s notorious security office, up to five St. Louis County officers at one time, “feet kicked up on a desk,” “texting or using their phone apps,” and not at all “engaged in any police duties,” a second Metro officer wrote to Zott the following day.

The state is deciding who is fit to be parents, keeping parents from treating their sick kids, and arresting parents if their kids skip school. Oh but don’t worry about that smart device in the home. All that info it’s collecting on your kids could never fall into the wrong hands.

Parents in Oregon have had two of their children taken away by the state. There is no evidence, or even accusation, of abuse or neglect. But the parents have low IQs. So the state can take your kids if they decide you are too dumb.

The psychopaths in the British government are still trying to prevent a baby with a rare disease from getting treatment in America. The U.S. Congress has granted the child citizenship in order to circumvent British authorities. Now an American dad of a child recovering from a similar condition speaks out.

If your child faces a “substantial risk” of injury or illness, the state of California can take them away to protect them. So that just about covers everyone. Of course the all knowing state has a perfect record of keeping children safe… right?

The Mobile County Sheriff’s website alerts the public to an elderly home invasion, a body found in the trash, and a murder suspect on the loose. On another page, they list with pictures the parents of “truant” children. Parents are being told to turn themselves in for their crime of failing to send their kids to school. The Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook to shame and intimidate parents.

So with all the risks, the state poses to parents, why on earth would anyone introduce a smart speaker into their home? Already a smart speaker has called police during a domestic disturbance. Is it an innocent play thing that makes parenting easier or a spy device that could be used to assess your parenting?

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

We have entered a new regime and it’s called the American police state.

Continuing its disturbing trend of siding with police in cases of excessive use of force, a unanimous Court declared that police should not be held liable for recklessly firing 15 times into a shack where a homeless couple—Angel and Jennifer Mendez—was sleeping.

Understandably, the Mendezes were startled by the intruders, so much so that Angel was holding his BB gun, which he used to shoot rats, in defense. Despite the fact that police barged into the Mendez’s backyard shack without a search warrant and without announcing their presence and fired 15 shots at the couple, who suffered significant injuries (Angel Mendez suffered numerous gunshot wounds, one of which required the amputation of his right leg below the knee, and his wife Jennifer was shot in the back), the Court once again gave the police a “get out of jail free” card.

Unfortunately, we’ve been traveling this dangerous road for a long time now.

In the police state being erected around us, the police and other government agents can probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.

Whether it’s police officers breaking through people’s front doors and shooting them dead in their homes or strip searching motorists on the side of the road, these instances of abuse are continually validated by a judicial system that kowtows to virtually every police demand, no matter how unjust, no matter how in opposition to the Constitution.

These are the hallmarks of the emerging American police state: where police officers, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled.

A review of critical court rulings over the past decade or so, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

This Court has allowed an officer to stop you for whatever reason he wants—so long as he can point to a pretextual justification after the fact. That justification must provide specific reasons why the officer suspected you were breaking the law, but it may factor in your ethnicity, where you live, what you were wearing, and how you behaved. The officer does not even need to know which law you might have broken so long as he can later point to any possible infraction—even one that is minor, unrelated, or ambiguous.

The indignity of the stop is not limited to an officer telling you that you look like a criminal. The officer may next ask for your “consent” to inspect your bag or purse without telling you that you can decline. Regardless of your answer, he may order you to stand “helpless, perhaps facing a wall with [your] hands raised.” If the officer thinks you might be dangerous, he may then “frisk” you for weapons. This involves more than just a pat down. As onlookers pass by, the officer may “‘feel with sensitive fingers every portion of [your] body. A thorough search [may] be made of [your] arms and armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and entire surface of the legs down to the feet.’”

If you still can’t read the writing on the wall, Sotomayor breaks it down further: “This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong… So long as the target is one of the many millions of people in this country with an outstanding arrest warrant, anything the officer finds in a search is fair game for use in a criminal prosecution. The officer’s incentive to violate the Constitution thus increases…”

Police officers can stop cars based on “anonymous” tips or for “suspicious” behavior such as having a reclined car seat or driving too carefully. In a 5-4 ruling in Navarette v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that police officers can, under the guise of “reasonable suspicion,” stop cars and question drivers based solely on anonymous tips, no matter how dubious, and whether or not they themselves witnessed any troubling behavior. More recently, in State v. Howard, the Kansas Supreme Court declared that motorists who recline their car seats are guilty of suspicious behavior and can be subject to warrantless searches by police. That ruling, coupled with other court rulings upholding warrantless searches and seizures by police—for such “suspicious” behavior as having acne scars, driving with a stiff upright posture, having car windows that are too heavily tinted, driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s tires, leaving a parked car door open for too long, avoiding a traffic light by driving through a parking lot, driving near a bar or on a road that has large amounts of drunk driving, driving a certain make of car (Mercedes, Grand Prix and Hummers are among the most ticketed vehicles), having anything dangling from the rearview mirror (air fresheners, handicap parking permits, toll transponders or rosaries), or displaying pro-police bumper stickers—renders one’s car a Constitution-free zone.

Police can “steal” from Americans who are innocent of any wrongdoing. In refusing to hear a challenge to Texas’ asset forfeiture law, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Texas police to keep $201,000 in ill-gotten cash primarily on the basis that the seized cash—the proceeds of a home sale—was being transported on a highway associated with illegal drug trade, despite any proof of illegal activity by the owner. Asset forfeiture laws, which have come under intense scrutiny and criticism in recent years, allow the police to seize property “suspected” of being connected to criminal activity without having to prove the owner of the property is guilty of a criminal offense.

Americans have no protection against mandatory breathalyzer tests at a police checkpoint, although mandatory blood draws violate the Fourth Amendment (Birchfield v. North Dakota). Police can also conduct sobriety and “information-seeking” checkpoints (Illinois v. Lidster and Mich. Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz).

Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime. In Maryland v. King, a divided U.S. Supreme Court determined that a person arrested for a crime who is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty must submit to forcible extraction of their DNA. Once again the Court sided with the guardians of the police state over the defenders of individual liberty in determining that DNA samples may be extracted from people arrested for “serious” offenses. While the Court claims to have made its decision based upon concerns of properly identifying criminal suspects upon arrest, what they actually did is open the door for a nationwide dragnet of suspects targeted via DNA sampling.

Police can use the “fear for my life” rationale as an excuse for shooting unarmed individuals. Upon arriving on the scene of a nighttime traffic accident…

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”—Justice William O. Douglas, dissenting, Coltenv. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104 (1972)

Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status quo.

This police overkill isn’t just happening in troubled hot spots such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., where police brutality gave rise to civil unrest, which was met with a militarized show of force that caused the whole stew of discontent to bubble over into violence.

A decade earlier, the NYPD engaged in mass arrests of peaceful protesters, bystanders, legal observers and journalists who had gathered for the 2004 Republican National Convention. The protesters were subjected to blanket fingerprinting and detained for more than 24 hours at a “filthy, toxic pier that had been a bus depot.” That particular exercise in police intimidation tactics cost New York City taxpayers nearly $18 million for what would become the largest protest settlement in history.

More recently, this militarized exercise in intimidation reared its ugly head in the college town of Charlottesville, Va., where protesters who took to the streets to peacefully express their disapproval of a planned KKK rally were held at bay by implacable lines of gun-wielding riot police. Only after a motley crew of Klansmen had been safely escorted to and from the rally by black-garbed police did the assembled army of city, county and state police declare the public gathering unlawful and proceed to unleash canisters of tear gas on the few remaining protesters to force them to disperse.

To be clear, this is the treatment being meted out to protesters across the political spectrum.

The police state does not discriminate.

As a USAToday article notes, “Federally arming police with weapons of war silences protesters across all justice movements… People demanding justice, demanding accountability or demanding basic human rights without resorting to violence, should not be greeted with machine guns and tanks. Peaceful protest is democracy in action. It is a forum for those who feel disempowered or disenfranchised. Protesters should not have to face intimidation by weapons of war.”

Last week, we discussed the internet of things, and how smart devices could be used to literally know more about us than we know about ourselves.

This is not some distant future dystopia we are talking about. It is already happening.

A smart device in a home called the police during a domestic violence incident.

It appears to have been a reaction by the device to the abuser yelling at his girlfriend, “Did you call the sheriffs?” The device heard “Call the sheriffs,” and did so.

A SWAT team arrived at the home and after negotiating for hours, they were able to take Barros into custody. Police tell ABC News that the man’s girlfriend was injured but did not need to visit a hospital. The couple’s daughter was safe and unharmed.

“The unexpected use of this new technology to contact emergency services has possibly helped save a life,” Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said in a statement.

It’s hard to look at this as big brother ruining lives; after all, the guy was abusing his girlfriend in front of their daughter. Constant spying has entered the mainstream media as a good thing. Look at all the benefits of having nowhere to hide; the scum of the earth who abuse their girlfriends will be caught and locked up.

But there are a lot of crimes out there, and not all of them harm others. In fact, chances are we all break multiple laws on a daily basis. So if the government knows about every law you break, they could certainly choose to overlook them. If they also know however that you legally reduced your taxes to almost nothing, or that you have a legal foreign bank account, well then maybe they have some incentive to snag you.

Al Capone was never arrested for murder, racketeering, or selling alcohol. He was arrested for tax evasion. If they want you, they can find a way to get you. They have been doing it since Capone’s time.

What if it had been another illicit activity that was recorded by the smart device? What if it had been a victimless crime? Would the police have come if they heard people talking about growing 25 marijuana plants in the basement?

The media will point to the “success stories” of locking up the bad guys with this technology. They will not highlight the people who are nabbed for code violations, renting out a room illegally, or hate speech.

In some ways, this problem has an easy solution; simply do not use devices that will spy on you.

But in another sense, that is not so simple. Even most cell phones these days are constantly recording your conversations. Is the only solution becoming hermits?

Are we willing and able as consumers to demand that type of privacy? Comment with your thoughts on how you have dealt with this problem in your own life.